As the Rotary Public Image Coordinators for New Zealand, the South Pacific Islands and Australia, we are keen to communicate regularly using this Blog. It will contain the latest Public Image news. We need to enhance our Public Image. It is our task to facilitate this and one method is using the Blog. We will be updating it on a regular basis. Do check it out and add the link to your Club web site and Bulletin. [PDG Leanne Jaggs (Zone 7b) & Wendy Gabroit (Zone 8)]

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

When promoting Rotary are you just informative yet persistent ... or are you just plain pushy? Have a read of this and then consider whether how you approach your publicity is best: https://a2rotary.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/why-is-rotary-so-pushy/

Friday, January 22, 2016

Bahamas Waste
unveiled their latest 'designer truck' to bring awareness to Rotary's efforts
to end polio in the world.It would be
hard to find a better mobile public relations board for Rotary as such trucks
are on the road all day, every day ... helping to ptrevent disease and ensure better sanitation!

Bahamas Waste have had three past presidents and
five total Rotarians on their Board of Directors so they share a common
philosophy with the Rotary core values.

Monday, January 18, 2016

The Rotary Foundation is a very significant part of the vitality of
every club as every club will participate in at least some of their
programmes and most support the Rotary Foundation through donations.
Therefore it make sense for every club to use the Centennial as a way
for strengthening Rotary among members and in their community; this will
be a significant motivational (membership) and marketing (publicity)
opportunity not to be missed. Start planning to maximise this
opportunity now.

The celebration of The Rotary
Foundation’s 2016-17 centennial officially kicks off at this year’s convention
in Korea, but you can prepare your club and district officers now using
materials in the centennial promotion kit.

Here are some ideas for promoting
the centennial in your upcoming presidents-elect training seminar and district
training assembly:

Cambridge
Rotary in support of Alzheimer's New Zealand present the 24 Hour Cycle
Challenge hosted at the Avantidrome in Cambridge,
NZ.Web: www.24hourchallenge.co.nz

·There is a relevant event logon clearly
showing Rotary’s involvement and using the correct Rotary branding - a good idea to invest in relevant graphics for events that have longevity

·The event site home page clearly states
the club’s involvement

·The event logo is on every page of the
event website so Rotary’s involvement is always top and center

·There is a link on the home page to
more information about the club (their website)

·The club website is up to date, well
laid out, informative and has a means for the club to be contacted (although
maybe a direct phone contact would improve this?)

They have
promoted via their district and club website with information to all district clubs
and inclusion onto a spread of social media plus all sorts of local media and
beneficiary and sponsor networks … in other words letting as many people know through
as many sources as is possible and repeating the message in the lead up as many
times as they can.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

At Rotary Institute in Nelson, RI Director Elect Noel Trevaskis stated that the majority of those who leave Rotary comment that "we know no more about Rotary than when we joined".

This lack of knowledge about Rotary means that they did not know how, or have the confidence to, become engaged.

Yet there are in place some ready tools and opportunities that any club can make known and available to their members. Let's consider a few in brief:

Rotary Leadership Institute (or if you like 'Rotary Learning and Information'): This provides an understanding of the breadth about Rotary along with an understanding where Rotarians can go for more information to add a depth of knowledge as they have a practical need. New Rotarians (and many longer-serving) have found this absolutely invaluable in helping them become engaged and enthusiastic in Rotary to the delight of their clubs who are always wanting members to take the lead on projects and to invigorate the club with new ideas.

District Training events .... obvious... say no more. Other than there has been a huge amount of work using Rotarians who are professional trainers to ensure the delivery of Rotary training is excellent so if you have members who went to district training a few years ago and either it was "a waste of time" or they have "been there, done that" then they may wish to go again or at least not discourage others who would benefit from going, from going.

MyRotary has a huge resource that is designed to educate Rotarians about specific roles and the various programs and aspects of Rotary but who want to do this at their own pace. This ranges from information pages through to actual learning modules.

The options just keep coming ... what about the many free newsletters that members can subscribe to and have delivered straight to their Inbox. Many are tailored to assist people in specific roles and as such are incredibly useful, and can be unsubscribed from at any time. From a personal development perspective, many have information that members can use in their business and personal lives.

... not to forget our new-look and very well thought of Rotary Down Under magazine! You haven't read it lately then do so as you will find it is quite changed from this time last year. Most Rotarians who are serious about their Rotary at least skim thorough this each month and often will pick out an item or two they will read in full. Even a few might read it cover to cover but they would be rare but that is not the point ... just picking up a fact here or interesting point there makes us all better Rotarians, so for that fact alone it is worth members taking the magazine out of its cover.

Then of course clubs can use the magazine and any other Rotary source to slip the odd fact into the club meeting ... switched-on Sergeants know the value of this to extract a few coins from those who cannot answer facts turned into questions!

And there is more. Clubs NEED to encourage and assist members to learn about Rotary but equally, individual Rotarians from their first day in Rotary have an absolute right to go to RLI, district training, look at the website and more.

We all know the above but it is only those who actually DO the above who are succeeding in creating vibrant clubs. So what about it ....

Burleigh Heads Rotary recently had a superb project in Nauru and that will soon receive some well deserved publicity but what we want to illustrate is the impact possible from the way you present your photos.They could have done what far too many Rotary projects do and take a boring line up that does nothing to inspire ... here is what that would look like:

This is good for record keeping or as a momento but not for publicity that excites.But Burleigh Heads Rotary are far too experienced at getting great publicity so what they really took was this:

No wonder they get so many people 'on side' and helping their projects ... a 'six' every time from this exciting club.

So next time you take a photo at a project think about how you can make this interesting for your readers.Show the sweat, not the cheque.

If you are donating funds, no line-ups or cheque presentations ... instead get a photo of what the money bought being used.

And show faces please ... backs of heads and part obscured faces are hardly inviting.

Remember the specs:

minimum 300kb but preferably much higher-res quality (send the full sized photo as it came off the camera as 5 MB can be cropped to make an even better photo that 300kb)

action oriented

close up

be creative - think of the audience

Faces, faces, faces

Send as an ATTACHED picture file in jpeg ... do NOT embed in the email or a document

A good photo trumps anything else in getting publicity ... the text of an article can always be improved but a poor photo is always a poor photo.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

On 24 July, Nigeria will have passed one year with no new cases of wild poliovirus.

This
is the longest the country has ever gone without a case of polio and a
critical step on the path toward a polio-free Africa. We’ve come a long
way since the bleak years when
the virus reached its peak. It was only a decade ago that polio struck
12,631 people in Africa- three quarters of all cases in the world.

11 August
will mark an even greater milestone: one year since the last case of
polio in Africa. For Africa to be certified polio-free, all countries in
the region, including Nigeria,
must go two more years without a case of polio. To do this, all
children in Nigeria must continue to receive the polio vaccine,
including those in hard-to-reach and underserved areas.

I
am immensely proud of our Rotarians who have donated $688.5 million to
fight polio throughout Africa, including more than $200 million to
Nigeria. I congratulate these Rotarians
from Africa and around the world who have also devoted countless hours
to immunize the children who now have the opportunity for healthier,
happier lives.

Please
note if the stringent World Health Organization testing criteria are
met, then Nigeria could well be removed from the list of polio-endemic
countries in September of this
year.

As
our public image coordinators, we need your help spreading the news
about this significant milestone. It is crucial to keep the world
informed about the progress being made in
the fight against polio. The support of Rotarians, donors, and local
governments are key to our goals and we rely on you to help keep them
informed. This is why the RPICs program was set up. Now is the time to
deliver.

Visit
endpolio.org to download a toolkit of materials, which will help you raise awareness about this progress by:

Distribute a press release to news outlets in your area, to share Rotary’s role in the fight to end polio. Customize this press release template and send it to editors and
news directors at local media outlets.

Send an op-ed to your local paper..
Update this sample op-ed for publication in your local newspaper. Check
for your paper’s specific guidelines (e.g. word count) and then
send it to the op-ed or editorial features editor for consideration.

Share news about progress in Nigeria using social media, and encourage your networks to donate. Sample posts and shareable content are available to download for your use.
Social media is a crucial part of our milestone campaign and is one of the most efficient ways of spreading information.